VidAngel: Are they not paying these people?!? [UPDATED]

I won’t go into all the hoops I jumped through just trying to get it to stream to my Roku, or my Apple TV, or directly to my smart TV before I gave up and plugged my laptop into the TV and we watched it that way.

He’s pretty funny. We enjoyed the show and weren’t at all sorry to have paid a dollar for it. It’s a steal for that price… But then at the end, we got offered the chance to give him a tip. I’m good with that too until I read this:

In case it’s too small to read on your screen, the bottom of the tip window says (emphasis added):

Give a tip to the creators and we’ll make more content like this! Remember this is the only way they get paid.

Perhaps the grammar here is just funny, or maybe I’m reading it the wrong way, but this sounds to me like none of my rental fee is going to pay the actual comedian. How can that be? If that’s the case then I find this business model to be fairly abhorrent. Granted, he agreed to it, but…

Anyway, I’ve been searching trying to figure out if I’m misunderstanding. They say “remember” like I’ve read it before, but I can’t find anything on their site that answers the question: Are the content creators being paid for their work prior to my giving a tip? Does anyone know?

UPDATE: So Bengt Washburn was good enough to write me back and answer my question. Here’s his reply:

Hello Ted! They paid me a fair fee up front. It should say it’s a way the Comic can get paid more. In any case- thanks for watching the entire thing all the way ay to the end!

I feel better knowing he was well paid, but still feel like there should be some more clear info available on the VidAngel website.